Does Japan fear a philosophy of "enjoying life"?

An article titled "The Pursuit of Real Leisure" in the Japan Times today by SCOTT NORTH Professor of Sociology, Osaka University leads to the question above.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120717hs.html#.UATEtnD6J7c

(From the article" "Today Japanese, like many other denizens of industrial societies, live to work. Nearly everything is a job to be done and our jobs define us. Japanese universities are filled with "intellectual workers." We value only that which requires struggle and hard work.

In this functional perspective, leisure is useful only insofar as it enables workers to work more. Moreover, much of what Japan calls rest is overpriced imitation of Western leisure, such as overseas travel, or sports, such as skiing and golf. The rest is mere entertainment, in which the machinery of amusement and media of mass distraction train the populace to be inattentive consumers.

Real leisure, on the other hand, is free, conscious activity that takes our lives as its object. In Pieper's vision, leisure enables appreciation and contemplation of the divine; it is stillness and quiet in which we can see truths and apprehend the mysteries of existence."

Why are Japanese unable to feel that they are "working to enjoy life", rather than resting to work? Why do people seem to feel they are "living to work" rather than "working to live"?

The article is one part of a series of opinions regarding the issue of overwork in Japan. I think most Japanese will agree that Japanese companies tend to believe that taking long vacations or leave or leaving on time at 5pm in order to enjoy life would violate the company culture and make it difficult for employees who try to pursue "leisure" to stay in the company.

Why is that? Despite changes in the labor law, apparently the situation has not changed very much. As the graph below shows, workers in the EU have a much better situation in this regard.

Personally, I think the core cause of the lack of time off in Japan may be a fear that a prioritization of leisure over work would lead to a loss of profitability or prosperity. Those who enjoy life too much will be doomed to poverty or a loss of competitiveness. It would be interesting to see a survey about such fears, with data broken down into different generations.

And so...is such a fear justified? Obviously, there must be a balance between a stress-filled culture of overwork and an excessive pursuit of leisure, and Japan has yet to find it. I would say that efforts still need to be made, especially by the top management, to give workers more time off to enjoy life--perhaps the company leaders need to start a shift in their mentality with some coaching about leisure for themselves. Perhaps the bureaucrats in Japan's ministry of labor need the same.

As a teacher, I also hope to see improvement in the work life balance for Japan's public school teachers. I have heard the time burden for work is excessive in many schools. Is it difficult to impart a love of life and a philosophy of "work to live" to our students when we are not practicing it ourselves, right?

It will be interesting to see what the fellows in my professional training session have to say about this.

Very powerful. I enjoyed this 1) as an inspiring film based on a true story in the history of American civil rights that needs to be told, and1 2) as a teacher of "argument" in my college writing and presentation classes. My Japanese university freshmen are going over the basics of argument structure and persuasion this week, and I hope I can introduce this film to inspire them to use their ideas and words as weapons for making a difference in our world.

The "Comfort Women" Monument in NYC

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/19/nyregion/monument-in-palisades-park-nj-irritates-japanese-officials.html?_r=1

I am confounded by Japan's attempts to stop the comfort women monument.

Why does Japan officially try to oppose these monuments (this one and the one in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul)? It is very hard to understand that mentality of trying to ask groups to "not remember history". The Japan of the past is the Japan of the past. Japan today should fully support monuments for remembering the tragedy of the mistakes made in that era.

When there are thousands of victims, many still alive, how can it possibly help Japan's image to oppose monuments to remember the tragedy?

When a mistake has been made in history, and people suffered, it is natural to leave a monument to remember and not repeat similar mistakes.

One of the most important points in this article is when the Korean group who built the monument for the comfort women explain that Japan's opposition is "helping" the monument. That is only natural. Nobody is going to support Japan's attempt to stop a monument for people who suffered.

In fact, Japan is going to completely embarrass itself when people around world (based on articles like this) see it as a country that is unwilling to accept the mistakes of its past as lessons for the future.

As a long time resident of Japan, I love the "new Japan" that strives to build a culture of peace. Just as the future children of the USA need to know the past mistakes of the USA, Japanese children need to be taught the tragedies brought about by the mistakes of the military government. Through history classes and monuments in and out of Japan, the mistakes should be brought to light as clearly as possible so that future generations do not repeat them.

When you study argument, propaganda and media manipulation this term...

Check out this article regarding the possible failure of Japan's mainstream media to investigate the flaws in the government's plans for dealing with the radiation incident.

How true is it? You be the judge:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120108x3.html?fb_ref=article_japantimes

As part of our unit on critical thinking, argument analysis, and propaganda, I usually introduce Herman & Chomsky's Propaganda Model to my students and make sure they are familiar with the forces that can shape media content.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

"5 Days of War" (2011) -- Practice Your Critical Thinking

I try to watch war movies that purport to be based on true stories, and many that I have seen have been both educational and moving. Some stories must truly be told, and film is an effective channel for helping people know more about the truth and human nature.

But a good dose of critical thinking is always needed, and this movie is an excellent platform for practicing critical thinking and the separation of emotion and biased thoughts from actual fact or an effort to present a situation in a balanced, objective way.

You should watch it for that purpose only, and probably NOT to learn about the 5-Day Russia/South Ossetia-Georgia war of 2008, seeing how it is funded by the Georgian government.

The movie starts with the line "The first casualty when war comes is truth." (1918 quote attributed to Hiram Johnson, a US senator) Very good line. After watching the movie and researching the content, the use of that line actually seems to be quite ironic.

Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1486193/
Japanese DVD title = 5  デイズ

Here's my recommendation:

1. First, watch the movie without reading too much about it and note your reactions.

2. Second, go read about the 2008 5 Day War in a number of sources. Starting with Wikipedia is fine, but make sure you go to the External Links at the bottom of the also try to read reports by the EU or UN Investigation Commission or Human Rights Watch.

3. Third, read about how the movie was funded and why it was created. Think about the 3Bs:
Background (where did it come from),
Biography (who financed and/or created it and why),
Bias (what part of the story are they ignoring or misrepresenting).

My Reaction to Gould's "The Geometer of Race"

Main Ideas:
In his 1994 article in Discover magazine "The Geometer of Race" (link to article), Stephen Jay Gould (link to profile) mainly seems to argue three main points using the historical example of Blumenbach's (link to Wikipedia) theory of human racial classification published in 1795.

 
 

1. Main Idea 1: Gould writes that scientists' theories can never be completely objective, and that it is important for scientists to realize that their personal and cultural biases are imposed to some extent on their theories. Blumenbach's hierarchical theory of race based on perceived beauty of physical characteristics of white Europeans (especially Georgians) shows how subjective ideas can influence theories.
2. Main Idea 2: Secondly, scientists must also realize that their scientific theories can have a powerful ideological impact on society. Gould believes that Blumenbach's theory of racial classification had a "practical impact...almost entirely negative, upon our collective lives" similar to the level of the impact of nuclear bombs (p.4 in our Reader).
   
   Gould believes this negative impact in terms of supporting racism, slavery etc. in the 18th to 20th centuries was due to Blumenbach's theory. He writes "Where would Hiter have been without without racism, Jefferson without liberty. Blumenbach lived as a cloistered professor all his life, but his ideas have reverberated in ways that he never could have anticipated, through our wars, our social upheavals, our sufferings...." (p.9). This is highly ironic, according to Gould, because Blumenbach was a promoter of equality among races, and was NOT a racist compared to other people of his time.
3. Main Idea 3: Relating to the key word Geometer in the title, Gould seems to want to argue that scientific theories form a "mental geometry" that remains in people's minds. Blumenbach's theory is an example of "redrawing the mental diagram of human groups" and the impact of the theoretical shift was "broad and portentous in scope" because people now had a visual representation of the hierarchy of race in definable geometric terms. I think he means a sort of triangle, with Causasians at the top, and Africans and Asians at the bottom, which is one way to interpret the theory.

My Critique
----------------
So, are those three points reasonable and persuasive?

I feel that the first point is strongly supported by the Blumenbach example. It is clear that Blumenbach, in spite of his best efforts to be scientific and to support the moral and mental equality of all humans, was influenced by a bias toward superiority of Europeans.

The second and third points, however, are not fully persuasive. Gould fails to show what kind of effect Blumenbach's theory had on European society. He suggests that Hitler was influenced, but no connection between Blumenbach and Hitler is explained. It is left to our imagination, and I am skeptical out this. He also fails to show that people really interpreted Blumenbach's theory in a geometric way. Many questions remain. Who read Blumenbach's theory, and what kind of ideas did they get from them? How widespread was this knowledge of the theory? Also, didn't racism already exist anyway, even without his book saying that Caucasians came first? What effect did he exactly have outside of the ivory tower? Gould needs to explain these points further if he wants to convince a critical reader.

Extra:
Here's a PDF of an exchange between a critic and Gould regarding this article. In this exchange, I think Gould is persuasive, although he apologizes for the alteration of Blumenbach's original illustrations from flat to a triangle, which was done by the publishing company to show what Gould was trying to say. Gould didn't do it, but he takes responsibility for the visual representation done by the book editor. Blumenbach never made a clear image of a hierarchy in his treatise, which was almost all text in Latin, but I agree with Gould (I think, assuming that his translations of the Latin are accurate), that a hierarchy of beauty is being argued in the treatise.

Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions (Harvard Ed. Newsletter)

http://www.hepg.org/hel/article/507#home

Teacher: Any questions?
Students: Uh....no?

The importance of students being able to generate good questions has been on my mind for a while and I was happy to see that there is a movement to emphasize this more in education.

When my students start a project for writing or reading, it is extremely important that they are generating questions actively on their own. Of course, I can give them writing prompts or reading discussion questions, but I have refrained from this more and more because I believe that always "giving" questions limits the growth of this key ability within the students. As teachers, I think we need to give the initiative to students and say "You create your writing prompt" "You create the discussion questions" "You develop the research questions to guide the project".

The link above has something called QFT, Question Formation Technique, in six steps.

1. Teachers design a focus - "Let's talk about intercultural communication"
2. Students generate/ask their questions - "Is it important? Why?" etc.
3. Students improve their questions - Change limited, closed questions to more specific, developed, or open-ended ones etc. that can help develop more understanding:  Is it important? --> Why should students know about intercultural communication? How can we use it in the future?
4. Students prioritize their questions - This is very important from my experience. In group discussions, students tend to see all questions as the same importance, but within a limited discussion or meeting time, the most significant or interesting questions have to be prioritized.
5. Students and teacher decide how to proceed with using the questions - start research, discuss them together etc.
6. Reflect on the process above. What was useful? What was difficult.

The authors Rothstein and Santana direct a microdemocracy institute that helps disadvantaged persons ask the right questions to promote advocacy on key issues. Their book Make Just one Change about how to help students ask questions seems very interesting as well.